Diff between comm. paed and dev. paed

[Poshpaws]

I have seen here on the SN topic, that people recommend that if you have concerns about your child's development,it is better to see a dev. paed and not comm. paed.

Was wondering why as DS2 saw a paed in June and was told he only has speech and language issues and was signed off. However,I was under the impression (wrongly, my mistake) that he was seeing a dev paed whereas he saw a comm. paed.

DS2 still has speech/language issues although has very much improved. However he is not making any headway in social interaction at nursery.

Nursery seem to have accepted the comm paed's report and have put an IEP in place. Should I just accept the decision and not push for a dev paed appointment (paranoid mum alert)?

from my understanding, a community paed would be a paed who works with ill children (like ina hospital) and a development paed works with children who have development delays/disorders usually at a child development centre or similar

In our area community paediatrians work in CDCs and we do not have any NHS developmental paeds,so children (who need it)are eventually assessed by CAMHS. I get the impression that community paeds are 'jack of all trades' rather than having particular expertise in any one area. They have expertise in medical treatment. However some do have particular clinical interests. Seeing an unspecialised paed can cause delay in Dx particularly where certain developmental conditions (such as autism) are present or atypical.

Thanks for the replies. He already has NHS SALT (which has been good - he has improved so much that he has assesment once every 6 months now). They have also put his name down for a group with other speeah/lang delayed children to help his interaction along, although these problems seems to only manifest themselves at nursery .

The comm paed seemed to know alot about autism. He mentioned that he sees a number of children on a regular basis with the condition and has ruled it out for DS2, although he said he couldn't rule out AS as he was too young at the moment.

Oh well, I guess I'll just have to wait and see how he progresses.

Thanks again.

ds2's overall care is the responsibility of the community paed but when she wanted a more in depth assessment run by the CDC for an ASD dx he was referred to a developmental paed who then reported back to the community paed.

TBH I think it depends entirely on the local HA paed services structure.

It seems to depend on the area. I am based in a Children's Services centre with the community paediatricians, who are also developmental paeds. They see all children referred from GPs etc with developmental delays, behavioural problems, genetic disorders, chronic diseases eg CF, as well as children with non-diagnosed disorders that may be autism, learning difficulties, toileting problems, sleep problems and suchlike.

this area is just community paed but our consultant is mister big on CP and epielpsy.